1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate processing apparatus and a substrate processing method, and more particularly, to a semiconductor wafer processing apparatus and a semiconductor wafer processing method in a single wafer-processing manner or a small number of (particularly, two) wafers-processing manner at a time.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a processing chamber for conducting a semiconductor wafer processing in a semiconductor wafer processing apparatus which processes a single wafer or a small number of wafers at a time, in order to increase the throughput, a temperature is not usually risen or lowered for each process, and in many cases, the temperature is kept at a predetermined high value.
FIGS. 37 and 38 are perspective views for explaining a conventional semiconductor wafer processing apparatus which loads and unloads the semiconductor wafer into and from the processing chamber which is kept at a high temperature.
In the processing chamber (not shown), a plate 110 for mounting a semiconductor wafer is provided beforehand. When the processing of the semiconductor wafer 100 is conducted, the semiconductor wafer 100 is directly mounted on an arm 122 of a tweezer 120 and is transferred into the processing chamber (not shown). Then, semiconductor wafer 100 is directly mounted on a supporting claw 116 provided in a space 112 of the plate 110 to conduct the processing. After the processing is completed in the processing chamber, the tweezer 120 is inserted into the space 112 of the plate 110 from the side of a space 114 of the plate 110 to put the semiconductor wafer 100 directly onto the arm 122 of the tweezer 120 to transfer the semiconductor wafer 100 out of the processing chamber.
FIGS. 39A, 39B and 39C show results of slips generated in the semiconductor wafer 100 when the semiconductor wafer 100 is processed by using such a conventional technique under a condition in which a P.sup.- &lt;100&gt; wafer having a diameter of 8 inches is used, N.sub.2 is flowed at 10 liters per minute, the processing time is 5 minutes, the processing temperature is set at 1000.degree. C., 1050.degree. C. and 1100.degree. C., respectively, and a preheating time of the tweezer is 30 seconds. The measurement was conducted under a microscope with a magnification of 50. As a result, it was found that a slip was generated especially around an outer peripheral portion of the semiconductor wafer 100.
In the conventional technique, there is a problem that a slip is generated in the semiconductor wafer as described above.